Maintenance n00b with inner edge tire wear

[johngalt]

Simply put, I have noticed that my Kumho's are wearing on the inner edge of *all 4 tires* much faster than the rest of the tire (inner edge meaning inner 1-2 inches maximum). I have had absolutely no free time to even drop the car off anywhere that I can trust (search for my Jeff Smith nissan in this forum to explain why) anywhere locally, but have a chance to leave my car with T3 in Atlanta over the weekend coming up.

Straight off, I heard from an airplane mechanic (A&P & IA) that he recalled something dealing with 'fancy' suspension systems, where if one of 4 wheels was out of kilter, all 4 wheels wore in the same pattern. Any truth to this?

I am also very hard up for money, but the tire wearout has been phenomenal - in just over a month the inner edges are *completely* worn out and I am facing new tires and an expensive alignment (which I am pretty damn positive will not solve the issue) or a possible accident when one of them blows, as I commute to work 35 miles a day - one way.

I am already making plans on calling T3 tomorrow to see if they can squeeze in looking at my car to tell me what is *really* wrong with it, but on the off chance that they cannot, any ideas?

[elwesso]

You have to have an alignment problem, if after a month (say 5000 miles) your inner tread is completely gone, there has to be something wrong, possibly someone aligned the car wrong sometime else?

Have you checked the obvious things like tire pressure??

Even though kumhos are cheapish tires in the tire land, theyre usually on the higher end of the cheap side, which means that theyre good enough that they wont wear goofy like REALLY cheap tires.

[maxnix]

Hunter machine with the Q45tech alignment technique.

Not just within specs, but right on optimal.

But first, flip your tires so the worn edge is on the outside, or you will be throwing good money after lost money.

What size tires on what dimension rims at what pressures? How many miles on shocks and other suspension wear components?

Current alignment measurements are.......?

[DrewQ45]

Take it to Gran Turismo here in Atlanta. They were the first ones to align my Q PROPERLY. See Jeff... he's been doing alighments since the 70's.

http://www.panteraplace.com/page95.htm

[jamesmost]

allignment $60-$80 all 4. is the car lowered ?? if so that would be the culprit.

[Q45tech]

Unfortunately once you know from alignment print outs that the camber is too negative

FRONT:[more than - 0.45 degrees - midpoint of range - nominal expected]

REAR:

[more than - 1.016 degrees negative nominal]

You must identify the cause and what components to replace to return the alignment to as new values.

If TIRE LIFE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCERN FOR YOU or some compromise setting that trades tire life for improved handling under extreme conditions.

Braking distance and acceleration can be affected by TOO MUCH negative camber.

[johngalt]

The Kumhos are the Ecsta KH811's, 94W load rating, within specs of the OEM tires, and were already on the car when I bought it in December. There was very little noticeable wear on the front tires at all, and the rear tires were roughly 50% worn, but all wearing was even. I have done *nothing* to the car to 'rice' it or make it faster or anything like that - it is the same as I bought it, except for the 20 grand in miles that I have put on it since purchase.

I actually like the Kumhos for traction, and until I noticed this drastic uneven wearing *and* a noticeable increase in sterring wheel vibration, I had them pegged as damn good tires for the car. The problem with 'turning' the tires around is thath te KH811s are directional - the inner edge is the inner edge. The size is 225/50RW17 on Stock '99 Q45t 17 inch rims.

I have been doing research for a while now at Tire Advantage and Tire rack and have found (based upon customer ratings) there there are only a couple of tires rated *consistently* better in both wet and dry traction that are within an even price range of the Kumhos, but obviously I have to get the alignment / suspension problem fixed prior to getting a new set of tires.

I was hoping to catch T3 yesterday, but they were way closed, so I left a message, and never received a call from them. I tried to call today but apparently they had just closed, and now I cannot even have the stupid thing looked at until sometime next week - more wear and tear on the tires.

When I purshaced the car the alignment was in order, although I say this from 'feel' rather than specs because I have not had an alignment performed on the car since purchase. I have nospecs to give to anyone, and tire pressure us pretty constant - I run 27.0 in the rears and 32.0 in the front to enjoy a stiffer ride, along with the active suspension in 'sport' mode, for tighter handling(or, I should say, as tight as my 2 ton gas guzzling sexy sexy beast will do), and 80% of my driving is interstate driving, so not a lot of hardstops nor heavy acceleration.

I guess I was hoping for a more definite answer, or something like "Yeah, that is exactly what happened to me" type response, but I should have known better that a single symptom / set of symptoms can always have multiple causes.

C'est la vie.

It's just unusual for it to all of a sudden go out of kilter like that when I simply do not recall doing anything to the car that might have amde it go so badly out of whack.

As soon as I get results from an aligment from a trustworthy shop I'll post both before and after results.

[Q45tech]

Tried those KH...........what a mediocre summer touring tire gave them away after 6,000 miles.

Need 43-45 psi to even come close to a normal tire like Michelin, they couldn't even stand the minimal forces exerted on a rear only tire.

Fore your sake hope the 225/50/17 were better than 225/60/15.

[Q45tech]

Tried those KH...........what a mediocre summer touring tire gave them away after 6,000 miles.

Need 43-45 psi to even come close to a normal tire like Michelin, they couldn't even stand the minimal forces exerted on a rear only tire.

For your sake hope the 225/50/17 were better than 225/60/15.

A good rule of thumb is to always use a tire that is at least as good as what came new on the car. Michelin or better for a reason.

[maxnix]

I bet at 20K they are pretty much used up.

Time to think about new and better tires. Really. Be sure suspension wear components are up to OEM as new specifications before mounting new tires.

[johngalt]

Had an alignment performed...Here are the results.

................Left Front..............................................................................Right Front

Actual..........Before..........Specified Range............................................Actual..........Before..........Specified Range

-0.7°..............-0.7°...........-1.4°.........0.1°...............Camber..........-0.9°..........-0.9°............-1.4°............0.1°6.7°...............6.7°.............5.7°..........7.2°...............Caster............7.0°..........7.0°..............5.7°.............7.2°1/32"...........-1/32"..........1/32"........1/16"...............Toe.............1/32"...........1/16"............1/32".........1/16"13.6°...........13.6°............12.4°.........13.9°...............SAI...............13.6°..........13.7°...........12.4°............13.9°12.9°...........12.9°............11.0°.........14.0°......Included Angle......12.7°..........12.7°...........11.0°............14.0°-----...........-----.............-----...........-----....Turning Angle.Diff....-----..............-----..............-----...........-----.0.0".............0.0".............-----...........-----.........Ride Height........-----..............-----..............-----...........-----.

................................Front......................Actual..........Before...........Specified RangeCross Camber.....0.2°.........0.3°............-1.0°.....1.0°Cross Caster......-0.3°........-0.3°............-1.0°.....1.0°Total Toe...........3/32"........1/32".........1/32".....1/8"

................Left Rear....................................................................................Right Rear

Actual..........Before..........Specified Range...........................................Actual..........Before..........Specified Range

-1.5°............-1.5°............-1.3°.........-0.3°...............Camber...............-1.1°..........-1.1°............-1.3°....-0.31°1/16"..............0"................0"............1/8"..................Toe...................1/16"............0"................0".......1/8"

................................Rear......................Actual.......Before.........Specified Range

Total Toe...........1/8"........1/32".........0".....7/32"Thurst Angle....-0.01".......0.01"...........-----...-----
Modified by johngalt at 11:38 PM 8/11/2006

[elwesso]

im extremely confused by your post... Can you fill in the following for me?

FRONT BEFORE

Camber: L/RCaster: L/RToe: L/R

FRONT AFTER

Camber: L/RCaster: L/RToe: L/R

REAR BEFORE

Camber: L/R

REAR AFTER

Camber: L/R

[johngalt]

I didn't realize that the board software compresses spaces....

So I am editing it right now - please bear with me as I don't have a scanner to get this uploaded as an attachment.

[elwesso]

Man that alignment looks perfect..... Toe is spot on, camber and caster are both reasonable... I couldnt ask for a much better alignment...

I have to think its the tires, because your alignment didnt really look that far off to begin with.

[johngalt]

OK, that is as far as I am gonna get. It's times like these that I really wish I had access to a scanner or a really, really good digital camera.

I also had no choice but to opt for new tires as the tread was almost peelable off the tire on the left rear tire. I opted for cheapies for now, Falkens, until I can do some more research *and* get the car looked at by T3 for any *other* problems that might kill my tires.

[johngalt]

Man that alignment looks perfect..... Toe is spot on, camber and caster are both reasonable... I couldnt ask for a much better alignment...

I have to think its the tires, because your alignment didnt really look that far off to begin with.

Well, I can say this:

After replacement of the tires and the alignment, the following has occurred:

1) A noticeable decrease on the steering wheel / chassis vibration up to 100 mph - by this I mean that it barely vibrates at all, in 'sport' mode on the suspension setting, whereas before the vibration was so intense I had to take it out of sport mode just to dampen it a bit (mainly so my watch would not be rattling on my arm as I was driving).

2) The car, which previously had *absolutely* no noticeable pull in any direction, now tends to sway a bit to the right.

3) The entire ride is much smoother, although this is more than likely due to all 4 new tires being balanced as well.

4) All of a sudden, when coming to a medium to moderately hard stop, the brakes are shimmying (best was I can describe it because I cannot think of the actual word to describe the symptom, whereas previous the shimmy was barely noticeable. I know I need a brake job relatively soon, so please don't point out the obvious - my point is that with an alignment and new tires the brake symptom got noticeably worse. (and btw, the brake job comes in less than 2 weeks - I only have so much money).

I personally think the left rear tire had gone defective on me, but as I did not purchase them originally, and since I put 20K miles on them myself, on top of what the previous owner put on them, it is safe to say that it was probably time they were replaced anyway.

I have been doing a lot of research on Tire Rack, and I always seem to come up with the Kumhos, a Yokohama and the upper scale Avon as being the best tire for my budget (I certainly don't ahve $200 per tire plus road hazard to spare), and am surprised at hte negative responses the KH11s get - they are noisy, but hell, I ain't looking for noise comfort, I want pure out performance, and those things made my car feel like it was on rails. I don't give a rat's (tail) about how they sound, cause I want traction, traction, and cornering stability, in that order. I accelreate hard, sometimes at my car's limit til I reach around 80, and don't do a lot of driving around thing's like the Dragon's Tail in NC, hence cornering not being at the *very* top of my list. The thing I liked about the KH11s was that, when any slippage occurred, it was minute, (yes, I know due to the TCS) but all around traction during acceleration and braking really made the car feel like I was riding Semi-Hard racing slicks.

Then again, I don't have a lot of experience with performance tires, and when Tire Rack said the Bridgestone RE050s were teh OEM tires, I shied away from those like they were the plague. I had a bad experience with Bridgestone tires, don't recall exactly which ones, on my '97 Eclipse, in that they ran out of tread Super fast - as you can see, with 20K+ miles in 8 months, I most certainly will not be able to afford tires every year, an yet finding performance tires that blend wear out with the aforementioned attributes that I am looking for is extremely hard. It almost seems as if I can get only one or the other.

I figure if the Kumhos on the rear lasted me 20K miles, after having been about 50% worn (or so) then as long as I don't have tire failure another set should last me well past 30K. And at the price, it is a lot better than, say, some $220 Continentals or Yokohamas that will wear out in the same time frame.

IMNSHO, of course.